The principle behind trademarks is that trademarks are signs that are affixed to goods or services that indicate to prospective customers the origin of the goods or services. That way, prospective customers can identify goods and services as coming from a particular origin that they trust and they can distinguish these goods and services from similar goods or services coming from another origin that they don't necessarily trust.
Some trademarks enjoy a very high degree of trust among customers such that goods labeled with these trademarks can be sold at a significant margin. As a result, trademark fraud, whereby counterfeited goods are being sold with falsely affixed trademarks, is very widespread to the detriment of both the genuine trademark holders and the customers. In some cases, for example pharmaceuticals, the consequences of trademark fraud can even endanger the health and lives of customers. To combat this type of fraud, for example, a country's customs agency may try to intercept the importation of fraudulently marked goods at the border. This requires that customs are able to quickly and reliably distinguish genuinely marked goods from fraudulently marked counterfeit goods. With current technology, fraudulently copying physical trademark signs has in many cases become very easy, so that in many cases distinguishing counterfeited copies of trademarked goods from the genuine originals can be very challenging. Also, given the large numbers of (registered) intellectual property rights, in particular the large numbers of (registered) trademarks, in many jurisdictions, it is in practice infeasible for any customs officer to be aware of all existing intellectual property rights and know the particulars of all these existing intellectual property rights.
What is therefore needed is a technical solution for assisting, for example a customs agency, in assessing whether or not goods are fraudulent or counterfeit.